Huff

Oh, ye of little faith. I believe in that we will have Quarterly Meetings......and in the Tooth Fairy......and in The Easter Bunny......

I believe that when South Alabama begins to play Sun Belt football it will give ten teams playing in the conference. That would give nine conference games. If we added two schools - Texas State, San Marcos and UT San Antonio for example - it would make twelve teams playing football. The conference could then divide into two divisions and play a conference championship game. An easy western division would be the three schools in Texas plus La-Monroe, La Lafayette, and one other. I am not advocating this arrangement, just saying that it could be done that way.

GreenBat, is Nelson Barnes still at Oklahoma State? I thought that he had been given the opportunity to seek employment elsewhere. I could not find where he coached in 2008. Maybe I just missed him. I always thought that he was a really good man and a good coach, too.

You are correct in saying that there is no reason to oppose this bill BUT there was no reason the oppose the bill to establish the law school in the last legislative session either BUT it got into a fur ball late in the session and never got through. As the great philosopher Yogi Berra once observed "it ain't over 'til it's over". Truer words were never spoken.

Actually, NT80 fans CAN quit......and several have. It is hard to walk away from a program that you love and have supported for a long time but lots of folks have done it and I think over the next year or two several more will.

It is a big step from the legislature talking about something and actually doing it. The folks who thought they had a new law school for UNT through the last session will be among the first to shout "Amen" to that. Don't worry about what the legislature is going to do until about May 1st. That is when they start to get serious about things.

Perhaps one difference in points of view comes from the fact that North Texas fans have actually seen the team play while others have not. That could certainly change one's point of view. Also, it isn't just one season that brings on being negative. In the last sixteen years we have had four winning seasons. That is just not acceptable. I chose to not attend the last game of the season because I am just tired of seeing us get our tails kicked over and over and over again.

I find this whole thread a little interesting. Back between Thanksgiving and Christmas Rick V was telling people that there would be a groud breaking for the new stadium this Spring. When I ask the President of the University about it she said that it was not going to happen. When I reported that conversation to this group I got jumped on for being so darned negative. Well, folks it ain't gonna happen this Spring or early summer is it? Now, the ground breaking has been pushed back. Does anyone really believe that this is the last time there will be a pushing back of the starting date? I know that the student vote pledged half of the construction cost for the new stadium. That is wonderful but it cannot go into effect until after the stadium is finished. I still do not understand where the University will get the FIRST 30 million or so that is needed to get construction started. If I am a member of the Board of Regents I would not vote to start construction until I KNEW where that first 30 million was coming from. Can anyone help me to understand where the University gets the first 30 million dollars because I am clueless about that - and many other things.

A more interesting question might be "Do all of Dodge's assistants want to keep him?" It will be interesting to see how many - if any - of our assistants find other employment during the off season. Some of them probably do not have any options other than North Texas, but some of them certainly do.

It is amazing how you can get two completely different responses from two different people on the same subject. Last Saturday night in Denton the President of the University told me that there would not be any ground breaking for a stadium this Spring and sounded like it was still a long way into the future. No wonder we are all confused about what is going to happen and when. It will be intersting to see which person got it right - the President or the Athletic Director.

When I spoke to folks in the Athletic Department last summer they said we were scheduling the games against the MAC schools because they were very winnable games. Hmmmmm......

Huff hopes to get a date with Jenna Jameson for New Year's Eve.

Flyer has certainly been on the nose with his information BUT if I am on the Board of Regents I would say "we now know where half of the money is coming from but before I obligate the university to pay seventy million dollars I want to know where the rest of the money will come from" and if I am a financial institution that is going to issue bonds I am going to ask the same question. I know that might be overly cautious but in today's financial climate I think people are going to be very cautious about obligating the university to pay back a huge amount of money or lending the university that same amount. My guess is that any ground breaking for a new stadium is farther away than any of us would like.

Darrell Dickey is not the only one to complain about North Texas being a tough place to get things done. Matt Simon repeatedly complained about a lack of facilities and university support and even Rick Villarreal has been heard to complain about Denton being the only place that he had been that did not have its own TV station and had a newspaper that did not support the athletic program as he wanted it to. Maybe all three of them are right.

This should make the folks at TCU very happy. One of the hot rumors going around had them losing their coach to Kansas State.

Jim was a great supporter of the North Texas athletic program for a long time. Nobody ever worked any harder or cared any more than he did. He has walked away from it right now. Once again, he was just smarter than some of the rest of us. Happy Birthday, Jim ..........

It won't matter which one you select because it will be out of date before too long. We will get a new head football coach...or athletic director....or university president....or chancellor and that person will want "their" logo and/or school color. Just be sure to paint it in something that you can paint over when the time comes.

Guys, I do not think Army is one of our first four games. My best recollection is that we play them in Denton in November like we did with Navy. When we go up there it is also in November. Because they are not in a conference they have to fill an entire schedule with teams who work them in during conference play. I am pretty sure that is what we are doing.

Rick, I have a tremendous amount of respect for you and I think I get at least a little respect coming back my way from you. As you know, I have been a season ticket holder since 1972 and a contributor to North Texas athletics since Hayden Fry started the Mean Green Club in 1973. I have given money to change the seats in the Super Pit from orange to green and have given money to try to help build a new football stadium at North Texas without having ever been asked to do so by anyone in the athletic department. I have supported our teams when they were called Eagles, Mean Green, Mean Green Eagles, and even this year when we probably should have changed our name to The Skunks. I have missed very few home games over that span of time and have traveled to see games from Utah in the west to New York in the east. I have suffered through twelve losing seasons in the last sixteen years. I was not in favor of hiring a head football coach who had very limited experience at the college level and have yet to see anything that would cause me to change my mind. I just can't take it any longer. I will not be at the final game against Arkansas State and have not yet finalized a decision about next year. I know there will be people who refer to me as a rat but with the job I had for many years, I promise you that I have been called a whole lot worse than that. The kids who are finishing their careers at that final game deserved better. They deserved a chance to play their final game in front of a decent crowd but the folks who made the schedule for this year took that away from them. Those young men came to North Texas during better times and probably could never have imagined the won-loss record that would happen in the past four years. I know that it came as a huge surprise to me. Unfortunately I do not see it being much better next year. I praise those who will attend the final game of the year. I just cannot find it in my heart to be one of them. Don Hufstedler Azle, Texas

When a team has fifteen players fail a drug test and the coach says "I don't think we have a problem with drugs....." that would cause me to believe that the coach is a complete and total idiot.

The TV Star of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram shows that our game with Western Kentucky will be tape delayed and shown starting at 10:00 PM on Channel 21. They have a Mavericks game that is being shown at the time our game will be played.

There is no way that there were 18,000 people there tonight. There were lots of empty seats around us in Section E. The only way there could have been an attendance of over 18,000 would be if they counted tickets sold instead of fannies in the stadium.

I don't believe that this is the time to make a decision of any type regarding his contract. At the end of the 2009 season, let's see where we are. At that time we might want to make a decision to extend him or to let him go, but we certainly do not want to make that decision today.

There is nothing unusual about buying votes in the great State of Texas. Lyndon Johnson might not have started that process but he darned sure came close to perfecting it. In the traditon of "Landslide Lyndon Johnson" here's to the purchase of a few YES votes at the nearest watering hole.

In the words of Mayor Daly of Chicago......VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN.